There’s something about rivalry amongst peers that tends to bring out the bravado and machismo required to put a freshly built high-end hot rod through aggressive competition. That’s the best way we know to explain the phenomenon known as the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational (OUSCI). It’s become the one event that will make even the most cautious owner or builder decide to throw caution to the wind and bring his award-winning ride out to the middle of the parched Nevada desert to the Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch for a trio of trials. That’s why we love attending; there’s nowhere else you’ll ever see so many finely crafted cars in competition at the same time.

2/29Passengers aren’t allowed on any of the main competition stages of OUSCI, but they are on the road rally. We hopped in the Xecution Mustang (also on our cover) built by Filip Trojanek of CorteX Racing. Our favorite part of the Detroit Speed & Engineering Road Rally was the In-N-Out stop. Our least favorite was probably driving 90 miles through rain and sleet in 30-degree weather with no side windows or heat! Watch for a full feature on this extreme Mustang in a future issue of PHR!

This year, 53 of the best cars in the country were chosen by the OUSCI committee out of nearly 700 applicants, as well as entries earned through a series of qualifying events throughout the year. All of them went head-to-head on the road rally, a 2.2-mile road course, an autocross, and a speed-stop challenge. And style still counts too; automotive artist Murray Pfaff headed a contingent of judges that evaluated each competitor on execution and originality.

Just to make sure even the hairiest track car still had true street car credibility, the Detroit Speed & Engineering Road Rally began on Friday in Las Vegas rush-hour traffic. No serious contender dared to skip out either, as making all of the required stops counted for a massive 25 percent of the final score, and every point counted this year. The level of cars and driver skill has never been so high, and every year we go to the OUSCI we get more hooked. We may just have to get out there and earn an invite for one of our project cars. What about you?

2011 OUSCI Final Standings*

*Top 10 overall participants, 110 points possible

Competitor:

Total points:

1. Danny Popp

80

2. Mark Stielow

80

3. Brian Hobaugh

72

4. Gary Rubio

63

5. Mary Pozzi

62

6. Brian Finch

58

7. Mike Maier

57

8. Pete Callaway

50

9. Filip Trojanek

49

10. Kyle Tucker

42

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1962 Chevy II “The Runt”

This diminutive little Chevy II may be known as “The Runt,” but the performance it packs is more like you’ll find from the pick of the litter. Gerry Kerna has worked with RPM in the past to create her ’41 Willys, but this time she decided she wanted more than another pretty face; she wanted a car built that was capable of competing in, and winning, autocross and track events. Rather than the standard suspects generally chosen for such projects, however, Gerry wanted to do it in an early Chevy II. The catch there is that to bring the little commuter car up to her expectations of performance and style, RPM knew they would have to start from scratch with a new chassis custom tailored to squeeze big rubber and big cubic inches in a tiny shell. With major amounts of fabrication in store for them already, RPM sought out a superclean all-original ’62 Chevy II that had little damage to be addressed. It was immediately stripped down, mediablasted, and mounted on a frame table in preparation for major slicing.

Real-world driving and handling was at the top of the priority list, but so was style. To get the absolute perfect stance without giving up any performance, RPM called The Roadster Shop to have a custom chassis built with some very strict parameters. The specs called for a 335/30R18 tire in the rear, a 255/35R18 in the front, LS7 power, and a implausibly low stance that would absolutely drop jaws and tweak necks. The real kicker was that it all had to stay under the stock Chevy II sheetmetal. No problem for The Roadster Shop crew; careful engineering and design was able to pull all that and more into a chassis that had no compromises in function.

All this was shaping up for one scrappy little machine—which is where the name came from. Just like even the biggest brawlers would be hesitant to step up to Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao, Gerry realized her little welterweight fighter had the stuff to rock combatants in any ring of competition. So it’s “The Runt” to remind everyone that you have to watch out for the unexpected little guy.

Vintage Mopars are always few and far between at any given track event, and nearly nonexistent at autocrosses—especially block-long B-Body cars. Mike Musto aims to change that while wielding his own rendition of Dodge’s ultimate effort at high-speed racing: the Daytona.

While it originated as a standard ’69 Charger, as far as the body goes this is as close to the real deal as you can get. The Daytona parts are dead-on accurate and made from patterns off the original NASCAR parts by Mike Goyette of Dayclona Enterprises in Massachusetts. To our knowledge, it’s the only Pro Touring Dodge Daytona in existence. Seriously, when was the last time you’ve seen anything except a restored Daytona locked away like some sort of precious gem?

Mike puts his Daytona to good use often; it’s driven weekly, has been coast to coast three times—wound its way up into Canada and down to the Mexican border as well. This car is the definition of a driver. “Hell, we were one of the only cars that drove to SEMA,” Mike says. “That’s a 600-mile run there and 600-mile trip home, plus we raced it in the 2011 Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational. While other cars were on or in trailers, we packed the trunk with parts and tools and drove it. This is a true long-distance street car with great driving and track manners.” He may not have made the Top 10 finishing places at the OUSCI, but Mike certainly exemplifies exactly the kind of point of view the competition is all about.

Neither Mike nor the Daytona are strangers to competition or road courses either. Prior to the OUSCI, they’ve competed in the Bullrun Rally and The Fireball Run, raced at Grattan Raceway, Monticello Raceway, Pocono Raceway, and New Jersey Motorsports Park. Occasionally he even gets a little heavy footed on areas of wide-open road too. His worst ticket? Coming out of Canada at 121 mph. “They were not happy with me,” Mike says with a laugh. “They wanted to impound the car but they didn’t have a flatbed long enough to transport it!”

The heavy foot won’t get Mike in trouble on his next planned adventure; in 2012, he plans to be the first Dodge Daytona ever to run the famed Nurburgring and Autobahn when he ships it over to Germany. With the Daytona’s slippery 0.28 coefficient of drag (Cd) and planned swap to some new 6.1L Hemi power, it should be able to slice through the air with ease.

Unlike the numerous “R” designations that have popped up on lesser cars over the past few years, the Raybestos GTO-R actually earns that now seemingly universal designation for “race prepped.”

Designed and built by Hot Rod Chassis & Cycle (HRCC) as a giveaway car for Raybestos, you’d expect that this ’64 GTO was little more than looks and graphics—but that’s just not how Raybestos’ Josh Russell and HRCC’s Kevin Tully build cars. Russell decreed that this needed to be one that not only talked the talk, but fully walked the walk. He wanted something that harkened back to Raybestos road racing days as well as nodded toward their heavy involvement in NASCAR right up to the current cars—maybe with a little bit of Herb Adams Gray Ghost thrown in.

Tully was more than onboard with that concept. While HRCC might be best known for their traditional hot rods, they’ve also always built race cars. Matter of fact, the ’63 Plymouth Savoy Super Stock that HRCC built won the title of World’s Fastest Nostalgia Super Stock at the Nitto tires NMCA/NMRA World Series. Of course, Tully had never tried his hand at building a road race car. He had reservations though: “It’s science and math, not black magic,” Tully told us. “Technology is technology; you just have to understand it.”

And understand it he does; with the help of his crew Dane Larson, Ryan “Rocket” Scherman, and Bill Beers, Tully designed a custom chassis and fully adjustable suspension around the specified components, particularly the brakes. With Raybestos’ name to uphold, a set of Raybestos NASCAR Sprint Cup–spec brakes were sent. Coupled with a 700hp 454ci LS engine and the ability to quickly adjust roll center, antidive, caster, and camber, the GTO-R was shaping up to be a car for the discriminating track driver.

That didn’t go unnoticed at the SEMA show where the GTO-R was displayed; the renowned Robb Holland, an instructor at the Nurburgring, was looking over the GTO-R and half-jokingly asked when he could drive it. Tully responded, “How ’bout Saturday?”

Holland accepted, and though they had to convert their OUSCI invite to exhibition, they’d get a chance to see what it was capable of in the hands of a professional driver. That was the GTO-R’s first time out on a track. We don’t have concrete numbers since it wasn’t being judged, but Holland reportedly felt that the GTO-R could have placed in the top 10 contenders. That’s saying an awful lot, and coming from a reliable source.

There are still a few months to go before the new owners take possession, and Tully has assured us that the shakedowns will continue. You know, just to make sure they get the most dialed-in car possible for their own outings.

In a field full of vintage and late-model muscle cars, we can always count on JF Launier of JF Kustoms to arrive at the OUSCI with a beautifully built Tri-Five Chevy that looks like it has no business being abused on the track. And yet JF never hesitates to push his cars as hard as he can, wearing an ear-to-ear grin the whole time.

Last year it was a ’55. This time JF brought out an exceptionally clean blue ’57 dubbed “Redline.” Why Redline? Well, let’s just say it’s a subtle hint that there’s much more than show car good looks going on with this ’57. We think it may also be a nod toward how JF likes to drive.

Actually, “subtle but striking” is probably the best way to describe this ’57. JF prefers to dress his cars down by smoothing lines, shaving unwanted emblems, and customizing trim and panels in a way that doesn’t distort the original look of the car. For example, they may look stock, but both front and rear bumpers are custom-built one-piece parts with no bolts showing. The famed ’57 Bel Air quarter trim is also completely custom with a different ribbing pattern, and it may be the first we’ve ever seen that’s actually better looking than the original.

Originally the plan for the 28,000-mile original (that had been in the owner’s family since the ’70s) was to build a simple driver. Nevertheless, as the build progressed so did the design, and the ’57 quickly morphed into a showstopper destined for SEMA and other high-profile events. But like we said, JF likes to drive ’em. “I’m very proud that we made it a race car before it has even seen more than 150 miles—and before it’s even been to its first indoor car show, which is due in January,” JF told us after his hot laps on the Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch road course. That—plus the road grime accrued during the rain and snow-plagued OUSCI Road Rally—adds up to some quality cleaning time for JF and his crew before the show season. We’d say it was the perfect way to prove the street cred of this show car.

We’ve toyed with the idea of building a C3-generation Vette for years, but could never really put our finger on just the right look. Well, from the moment we laid eyes on Dan Livezey’s ’69, we knew he’d hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly how to build a C3 Vette right. Of course it didn’t start off anywhere near this good looking. Dan’s buddy who helped him load it up told him he was crazy for buying a Vette that was little more than a shell that had been sitting for 30 years.

“At first I thought about just building a nice stock car,” Dan says. “Then after looking over what I had, I decided that it would never be stock again and got out the saw to cut all the junk off and start over.” And he did mean practically from scratch; the only original parts kept from the Vette were the main body shell, doors, and frame. The new lease on life would be an idea Dan had been rolling around in his head for a while: a Trans-Am road-race style Vette, but with modern power. To get the look, Dan molded in new L88-style flares to get wide wheel and rubber underneath, added an L88 hood for a more aggressive presence, and slightly raised the rear of the car to flow with the fenders. Paired with the hardtop, we love the look.

After watching the 2010 OUSCI on TV, Dan decided that the ultimate goal would be to try to earn a chance to compete with the Vette in 2011. With the body ready, Dan contacted Lingenfelter to get his modern powerplant in the form of a mildly worked LS7. Of course once the ball started rolling, it just kept going. A FAST intake was ordered as well as COMP Cams valvetrain components for sustained rpm stability. Strong and lightweight BBS wheels were outfitted with the most Michelin rubber he could squeeze in under the flares. All that went to good use at the OUSCI where Dan’s Electron Blue ’69 was the only C3 Vette in the competition. He represented the vintage well though, especially in the RideTech autocross where he finished in the Top 10.

There’s nothing that forges friendship among hot rodders quite like coming together to pull off an improbable build against an outrageous deadline. That’s what happened between Brian Finch of Finch Hot Rod Transformations and Mark Turner when they took on what seemed like a straightforward ’69 Camaro project. The catch was that the scrapped shell of a ’69 needed to become a world-class Pro Touring car in time for the 2010 Face-Off at Road America, which was roughly four months away.

The guys dove right in, tacking a couple major fabrication projects like the rollcage, then sent the shell to be mediablasted before bodywork began. And that’s when things got interesting. The Camaro came back full of rust holes that had been badly patched with all manner of methods: foam, fiberglass, newspaper … you get the picture. Even the roof was completely shot, but rather than write off all their work and look for another car, Brian and Mark proceeded to remove every single body panel from the Camaro for fresh steel, still with the goal of wrapping it up in four months.

Luckily, Brian and Mark quickly discovered they work very well together and had complementary skills; Brian handled the heavy fabrication and custom work while Mark took care of the intricacies like plumbing, fuel system, wiring, sound deadening, and so on.

Through good teamwork and long hours, it all worked; not only did the Camaro make the Face-Off, it also did well at the Nashville Goodguys autocross soon afterward, and was nominated as a Muscle Machine of the Year finalist. Not bad for a four-month thrash on a trashed Camaro!

This year with Brian behind the wheel of the gorgeous green machine at the OUSCI, it again faired extremely well against cars that took much more money, and many more months to create. Other than the performance, the thing that really caught our eye was the low-key good looks of the color scheme. While it appears to be original Fathom Green, this verdant hue is actually Sage Green Metallic from a ’04 Hummer. Paired with the aged finish of the Forgeline wheels, it creates a classy and reserved look to the Camaro. Brian originally thought Mark was out of his mind for suggesting it, but now he thinks it fits the car’s attitude extremely well. We couldn’t agree more; there should be more green cars.

And that’s when things got interesting. The Camaro came back full of rust holes...